Mono allows the use of many languages in one project. This means that developers are less limited in their language choice, and makes it easier to port things from (for example) Python, which has a.NET/Mono implementation.
C# is also, frankly, a superior language to Java. Java may have popularized the "compile once run anywhere" theme, but that doesn't inherently make it a great language to develop in - its core is badly outdated, but preserved for legacy reasons, and the modernizations piled on top feel like something of a kludge.
It doesn't? Funny, that... the last time I had to install QuickTime (required for iTunes) it took over the job of handling a variety of files on my browser, including QT moves (of course, never mind that I had other apps for watching those) and JPEG (on IE at least, which some of the sites I need to use require). Considering that QuickTime has already had multiple in-the-wild exploits, I'd say that's a hell of a lot scarier than a.amz file which (at least on Vista) produces a prompt before loading the helper application (Amazon downloader, in this case).
Your analogy is just as flawed as that of stealing from a grocery store.
Software, unlike groceries from any source, has an immense up-front development cost, and in many cases a substantial ongoing cost (several posters have mentioned the huge number of support calls they receive from countries where their software isn't even sold...) Those costs represent a major investment. Selling the software is how you get a return on that investment.
Pirated software doesn't inherently increase the developer's costs directly, but it decreases their return on investment, which is very similar. Factor in support calls and it can become a significant cost, but even without that piracy can be a major problem for a software shop that in unable to produce sufficient revenue to recoup costs.
Incorrect; Hotmail never ran on Linux. It did continue to use Apache for some time, however.
Hotmail, when originally purchased, ran on FreeBSD and Solaris. Portions of it were moved to NT, running on Apache in the POSIX subsystem of the NT kernel (at the time, Apache for Win32 was not available, and Apache was miles ahead of IIS). This is one of the few cases I know of where the POSIX subsystem was used internally by Microsoft, although it is still under development and available in recent NT-based operating systems (some editions of Vista and Win7, and their server equivalents).
Out of curiosity, exactly what "buggy Windows kernel" are you referring to? Win9X sucked, but it's been discontinued. NT4 had some serious issues, but essentially nobody still uses it either (any more than they use Linux 2.2).
Since NT5 (Windows 2000, and especially 5.2 - Server 2003) the kernel is quite good. It's not perfect, but strip away the Windows user-space and the core of the system is quite a feat of engineering. Like all other mainstream OS kernels it is still evolving - 6.1 brings a few very significant low-level changes - but buggy is not the term anybody honestly familiar with the NT kernel would use.
Also, while your point about the visibility of each layer of the system is a good one, don't delude yourself into thinking it perfect. At some level, you always need to trust something you can't personally verify - when you take GCC source and use GCC to compile it into a new version of GCC, how do you know the GCC binary you're using hasn't been subtly modified such that the resulting compiled code has some malicious behavior that the source never specifies? How do you know the hard drive or CPU microcode you're using doesn't have a firmware-level rootkit? I'm not advocating closed-source software, simply saying that there's no such thing as perfect visibility unless you build everything, from the silicon wafers up, yourself.
Just thought I'd quickly point out that the official EVE Client does *NOT* use anything which can be legitimately called wine. Cedega is the result of a long-ago fork before the license was changed, and is a closed, proprietary app.
Also, whether it can truly be said to work is debatable. I used to think EVE looked beautiful, but since the premium graphics came out the classic client (which is all that the Cedega-wrapped versions can use) looks really dated. Wine (the real one) can sort-of run Premium, but it's still buggy.
I'm not so sure he's overestimating! Given how many years Windows XP and Windows 98 were aroung for, it's a safe bet that there are hundreds of times more apps for those two platforms than for Vista. A rather large fraction of those work in Wine. If a decent fraction of them don't work in Vista (and my understanding is that they don't), then just by number of apps Wine probably runs a lot more windows apps than Vista does.
Wine still doesn't run some programs meant for Win95 correctly (StarCraft is a particular annoyance of mine here, but it's not the only one). It certainly fails to run a *VERY* large number of XP programs; games are an obvious example (no, just being able to start the program doesn't count, it must be usable) but you still have productivity software, web browsers, reminder programs, and a host of other things that don't work. Hell, even if you manage to install.NET 2.0, there's no guarantee that a.NET app will work (Mono probably will, if no native.dlls are used, but that's not something you can count on for most apps).
The only programs I've been unable to run on Vista without paying for an updated version (a free patch is fine with me, especially if the compatibility checker directs me to the right place automatically, which happens on occasion) used kernel-mode drivers, and often weird ones. Even then, some such programs run fine.
From the sound of it, you've not even tried Vista (not in any serious way, certainly). You should probably do that before parroting the claims of others. As somebody who has extensively used both, it is a pleasant surprise if any remotely complex app runs in Wine without substantial work. It is an extremely rare shock if something in Vista takes more than a trivial change of compatibility settings (Run as Administrator being one of the most commonly needed).
Note: it doesn't count as "works in XP (or wine) but broken in Vista" if you need Admin privileges to run it on Windows. I ran XP as a non-admin, and it was a royal pain in the ass because so many apps expected to have full permissions (which, under most Wine configurations, you do have as far as the Windows app can tell). By comparison, UAC is easy, even if an app is so misbehaved as to need it every single time it runs.
Really? That's... more than a little surprising. On modern programs, Vista is far superior to Wine - blame it on.NET, DirectX, or whatever you want, but wine still struggles to run (and occasionally still fails to install) everything from games to web browsers. I've certainly seen a couple of recent apps - even games - that run truly perfectly in wine, but the most complex one I've seen is Battle for Wesnoth, which has a native Linux version anyhow.
As for older programs, the only ones I still run are games. Wine still fails to render Battle.Net correctly in StarCraft, and noticeably increases latency in LAN games. By comparison, Vista will, with almost no effort, run WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, a DOS-based game (in fairness, I believe wine will run programs *that* old just fine; my point is that in many cases, so will x86 Vista).
Use the tool appropriate to the task, of course, but damn near every program, no matter how old, that I've tried in 3 years of Vista (including betas) works fine. There are exceptions, of course, but claiming wine in more compatible in general is ludicrous. I would love for it to be true one day, but that day is still *very* far off.
There was a time I would never have even considered running a pirated version - my main experience with pirated software has been cleaning off Trojans installed by NoCD cracks or the like.
Now... I can see the claims that DRM is (sometimes, at least) truly more of a hassle for honest consumers than for software pirates. That is a truly sad thing.
Island maps (of the non-unlimited-case variety) can make stealing another race worthwhile (and often possible, since Mind Control on a transport gets you whatever is inside s well). That said, serious players tend to avoid island maps, so I suppose the point is moot.
Actually, they really don't stand any chance unless the player(s) intentionally avoid certain strategies which badly exploit the AI. Playing against AIs can still be fun in a "Can I win without doing X, Y, or Z" type of way, but while SC's AI is very advanced for its day, it's not even close to a standard chess program in terms of skill required to defeat it.
On the other hand, SC2 will supposedly have an AI so good it will *not* need to cheat - either through seeing the whole map or getting extra resource income (the advantages found in previous Blizzard RTS games). If pulled off, this would be very cool indeed - it's a rare AI in any RTS that doesn't cheat at all yet isn't a total pushover.
I use Interix (see http://interopsystems.com/ for more info) on Windows. It uses POSIX compatibility built into the NT kernel, reducing the levels of indirection. Most CLI apps work fine, although you'll need to compile anything the (rather limited) repository doesn't have. However, since GCC and the general build tools are included, this is pretty easy. Simple X apps, such as gvim or fvwm, also work well (an X server is included with the software bundle). Konsole... I don't know about that. QT is in the repo, but you'd have to compile the core of KDE from scratch.
You can, however, use a Windows CLI window running bash (or an Xterm if you prefer). If it's the shell you want, that works quite well.
You seem to have missed the point - XP WILL NOT play that media at all, in any situation, unless the DRM is first removed. Yes, Vista can prevent media which requires the PMP from playing... but it also can play it, which no previous version of Windows (or, to the best of my knowledge, any other OS) can do at all.
It still doesn't affect the average user who doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive, but happily listens to mp3s and music from Pandora, plays commercial DVDs and watches YouTube, and tries music suggested by friends.
Actually, IE has (at least a few) such add-ons as well. In fact, there's even a link to go to MS's site where such things are aggregated, and browse.
Personally, I find IE7Pro (works on other versions too, though some of the features it provides are native to 8 and don't work in 6) to be an excellent tool. Adblocking, spell check, and lots of other features.
A) IE7 releases resources when tabs or windows are closed. It may have a larger footprint that IE6 does, but I'll bet 6 has a larger fotprint than 5, too. Stability-wise, 7 never caused me any problems (that 6 didn't have at least as bad).
B) IE8, like Chrome (though the first beta of 8 actually predates the Chrome public beta) uses separate processes for tab management. This actually increases RAM usage per tab (in both browsers) but does mean that closing a tab releases lots of RAM. Also, it means that if a tab crashes, it doesn't bring the whole browser down (looking at YOU, Firefox...).
C) All modern browsers, including IE8 (and possibly IE7 - I forget - but most certainly NOT including IE6) will restore tabs after a crash, and have the ability to restore tabs that were open when the browser was closed normally.
Technically, no the files are not "DRM wrapped" as that would modify the files themselves. Instead, they go into a special folder on the Zune with associated metadata that limits the number of times you can play each song.
The Zune 30 (1st-gen) had a graphic EQ, but it was dropped from later players. This is disappointing (as a lacking feature) but I honestly don't care because the audio output quality, at least using the Premium earbuds, is quite good enough. It would probably bother some people, though.
Balance I don't think either Zune or iPod have, though I could be wrong about that.
Zune will automatically turn off if left in sleep long enough, but I'm not sure what the period is (doesn't appear to be settable). Don't know about iPod.
Mic and voice recording are present on the Zune. No iPod, not even the Touch, has this.
FM tuner is also present in all Zunes, and missing in all iPods. (On a side note, Sansa players can record radio, which Zunes can't - but Zunes can mark songs heard on the radio for later download.)
Overall, by the features you list, the Zune comes out at least as good as the iPod. I'm honestly not sure what "dumbing down" the Zune has, lack of an EQ (supposedly to extend battery life and reduce cost) aside.
In KDE, fish:// is a protocol for remote access to... well, anything (that takes a file path, at least). You can use it in Konqueror, of course, but you can also use it to open files in Kate, or archives using Ark, or rip and save an image to a remote server using K3b... you get the idea. It's cool.
Of course, it would help if all those apps worked correctly in KDE4, but 3.5 is still good.
While being able to use all 4 arrow keys is nice, you can cycle both directions in Alt-Tab (or Flip3D) using either arrow keys or holding Shift while pressing Tab. Unless you have a truly outrageous number of windows open, this is usually still quite fast - especially since the most common use is just flipping between two separate programs, in which case you need only hit Alt-Tab once for each flip (the other program, being the most recently used, will be first in the list).
I'm fairly sure - especially given the fast-loading thumbnails in Alt-Tab (A.K.A. Windows Flip) - that nobody seriously uses Flip3D for switching applications. It's a cool way to show off a compositing window manager, but is at best trivially more useful than Alt-Tab, yet significantly slower.
Well, it works fine (unless you're running a particularly performance-intensive applet) on the 400MHz Nokia n800 (same processor line that the iPhone uses, 2/3 the processor speed, Debian operating system). It certainly decreases battery life while, for example, watching a video online... but it's possible to do so. It's the real thing, too; Desktop-capability Flash 9 (at the time, the most recent version available for any platform - they may have upgraded to 10 with the most recent firmware).
Of course, it does make AdBlock Plus a necessity, but on a 800x480 screen I don't want ads filling up my browser window anyhow. Hell, I never do.
I realize that there probably are people buying those, but I've not once seen one "in the wild" (outside and Apple store). I've seen Zunes, I've seen Android-based phones, I've even seen a PS3 or two. Not a single AppleTV, though - and I actually know quite a few Mac fanboys.
In other words, Apple is allowing apps that are used for browsing, but has not gone back on their "no third-party software that can execute other software" i.e. a competing JavaScript engine (or Flash, or Java, or even Bash...)
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Mono allows the use of many languages in one project. This means that developers are less limited in their language choice, and makes it easier to port things from (for example) Python, which has a .NET/Mono implementation.
C# is also, frankly, a superior language to Java. Java may have popularized the "compile once run anywhere" theme, but that doesn't inherently make it a great language to develop in - its core is badly outdated, but preserved for legacy reasons, and the modernizations piled on top feel like something of a kludge.
It doesn't? Funny, that... the last time I had to install QuickTime (required for iTunes) it took over the job of handling a variety of files on my browser, including QT moves (of course, never mind that I had other apps for watching those) and JPEG (on IE at least, which some of the sites I need to use require). Considering that QuickTime has already had multiple in-the-wild exploits, I'd say that's a hell of a lot scarier than a .amz file which (at least on Vista) produces a prompt before loading the helper application (Amazon downloader, in this case).
Your analogy is just as flawed as that of stealing from a grocery store.
Software, unlike groceries from any source, has an immense up-front development cost, and in many cases a substantial ongoing cost (several posters have mentioned the huge number of support calls they receive from countries where their software isn't even sold...) Those costs represent a major investment. Selling the software is how you get a return on that investment.
Pirated software doesn't inherently increase the developer's costs directly, but it decreases their return on investment, which is very similar. Factor in support calls and it can become a significant cost, but even without that piracy can be a major problem for a software shop that in unable to produce sufficient revenue to recoup costs.
Incorrect; Hotmail never ran on Linux. It did continue to use Apache for some time, however.
Hotmail, when originally purchased, ran on FreeBSD and Solaris. Portions of it were moved to NT, running on Apache in the POSIX subsystem of the NT kernel (at the time, Apache for Win32 was not available, and Apache was miles ahead of IIS). This is one of the few cases I know of where the POSIX subsystem was used internally by Microsoft, although it is still under development and available in recent NT-based operating systems (some editions of Vista and Win7, and their server equivalents).
Out of curiosity, exactly what "buggy Windows kernel" are you referring to? Win9X sucked, but it's been discontinued. NT4 had some serious issues, but essentially nobody still uses it either (any more than they use Linux 2.2).
Since NT5 (Windows 2000, and especially 5.2 - Server 2003) the kernel is quite good. It's not perfect, but strip away the Windows user-space and the core of the system is quite a feat of engineering. Like all other mainstream OS kernels it is still evolving - 6.1 brings a few very significant low-level changes - but buggy is not the term anybody honestly familiar with the NT kernel would use.
Also, while your point about the visibility of each layer of the system is a good one, don't delude yourself into thinking it perfect. At some level, you always need to trust something you can't personally verify - when you take GCC source and use GCC to compile it into a new version of GCC, how do you know the GCC binary you're using hasn't been subtly modified such that the resulting compiled code has some malicious behavior that the source never specifies? How do you know the hard drive or CPU microcode you're using doesn't have a firmware-level rootkit? I'm not advocating closed-source software, simply saying that there's no such thing as perfect visibility unless you build everything, from the silicon wafers up, yourself.
Just thought I'd quickly point out that the official EVE Client does *NOT* use anything which can be legitimately called wine. Cedega is the result of a long-ago fork before the license was changed, and is a closed, proprietary app.
Also, whether it can truly be said to work is debatable. I used to think EVE looked beautiful, but since the premium graphics came out the classic client (which is all that the Cedega-wrapped versions can use) looks really dated. Wine (the real one) can sort-of run Premium, but it's still buggy.
I'm not so sure he's overestimating! Given how many years Windows XP and Windows 98 were aroung for, it's a safe bet that there are hundreds of times more apps for those two platforms than for Vista. A rather large fraction of those work in Wine. If a decent fraction of them don't work in Vista (and my understanding is that they don't), then just by number of apps Wine probably runs a lot more windows apps than Vista does.
Wine still doesn't run some programs meant for Win95 correctly (StarCraft is a particular annoyance of mine here, but it's not the only one). It certainly fails to run a *VERY* large number of XP programs; games are an obvious example (no, just being able to start the program doesn't count, it must be usable) but you still have productivity software, web browsers, reminder programs, and a host of other things that don't work. Hell, even if you manage to install .NET 2.0, there's no guarantee that a .NET app will work (Mono probably will, if no native .dlls are used, but that's not something you can count on for most apps).
The only programs I've been unable to run on Vista without paying for an updated version (a free patch is fine with me, especially if the compatibility checker directs me to the right place automatically, which happens on occasion) used kernel-mode drivers, and often weird ones. Even then, some such programs run fine.
From the sound of it, you've not even tried Vista (not in any serious way, certainly). You should probably do that before parroting the claims of others. As somebody who has extensively used both, it is a pleasant surprise if any remotely complex app runs in Wine without substantial work. It is an extremely rare shock if something in Vista takes more than a trivial change of compatibility settings (Run as Administrator being one of the most commonly needed).
Note: it doesn't count as "works in XP (or wine) but broken in Vista" if you need Admin privileges to run it on Windows. I ran XP as a non-admin, and it was a royal pain in the ass because so many apps expected to have full permissions (which, under most Wine configurations, you do have as far as the Windows app can tell). By comparison, UAC is easy, even if an app is so misbehaved as to need it every single time it runs.
Really? That's... more than a little surprising. On modern programs, Vista is far superior to Wine - blame it on .NET, DirectX, or whatever you want, but wine still struggles to run (and occasionally still fails to install) everything from games to web browsers. I've certainly seen a couple of recent apps - even games - that run truly perfectly in wine, but the most complex one I've seen is Battle for Wesnoth, which has a native Linux version anyhow.
As for older programs, the only ones I still run are games. Wine still fails to render Battle.Net correctly in StarCraft, and noticeably increases latency in LAN games. By comparison, Vista will, with almost no effort, run WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, a DOS-based game (in fairness, I believe wine will run programs *that* old just fine; my point is that in many cases, so will x86 Vista).
Use the tool appropriate to the task, of course, but damn near every program, no matter how old, that I've tried in 3 years of Vista (including betas) works fine. There are exceptions, of course, but claiming wine in more compatible in general is ludicrous. I would love for it to be true one day, but that day is still *very* far off.
There was a time I would never have even considered running a pirated version - my main experience with pirated software has been cleaning off Trojans installed by NoCD cracks or the like.
Now... I can see the claims that DRM is (sometimes, at least) truly more of a hassle for honest consumers than for software pirates. That is a truly sad thing.
Island maps (of the non-unlimited-case variety) can make stealing another race worthwhile (and often possible, since Mind Control on a transport gets you whatever is inside s well). That said, serious players tend to avoid island maps, so I suppose the point is moot.
Actually, they really don't stand any chance unless the player(s) intentionally avoid certain strategies which badly exploit the AI. Playing against AIs can still be fun in a "Can I win without doing X, Y, or Z" type of way, but while SC's AI is very advanced for its day, it's not even close to a standard chess program in terms of skill required to defeat it.
On the other hand, SC2 will supposedly have an AI so good it will *not* need to cheat - either through seeing the whole map or getting extra resource income (the advantages found in previous Blizzard RTS games). If pulled off, this would be very cool indeed - it's a rare AI in any RTS that doesn't cheat at all yet isn't a total pushover.
I use Interix (see http://interopsystems.com/ for more info) on Windows. It uses POSIX compatibility built into the NT kernel, reducing the levels of indirection. Most CLI apps work fine, although you'll need to compile anything the (rather limited) repository doesn't have. However, since GCC and the general build tools are included, this is pretty easy. Simple X apps, such as gvim or fvwm, also work well (an X server is included with the software bundle). Konsole... I don't know about that. QT is in the repo, but you'd have to compile the core of KDE from scratch.
You can, however, use a Windows CLI window running bash (or an Xterm if you prefer). If it's the shell you want, that works quite well.
You seem to have missed the point - XP WILL NOT play that media at all, in any situation, unless the DRM is first removed. Yes, Vista can prevent media which requires the PMP from playing... but it also can play it, which no previous version of Windows (or, to the best of my knowledge, any other OS) can do at all.
It still doesn't affect the average user who doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive, but happily listens to mp3s and music from Pandora, plays commercial DVDs and watches YouTube, and tries music suggested by friends.
http://ie7pro.com/
Works on IE8 too. Provides a lot more than Ad Blocking, but you can turn off the features you don't need.
Actually, IE has (at least a few) such add-ons as well. In fact, there's even a link to go to MS's site where such things are aggregated, and browse.
Personally, I find IE7Pro (works on other versions too, though some of the features it provides are native to 8 and don't work in 6) to be an excellent tool. Adblocking, spell check, and lots of other features.
A) IE7 releases resources when tabs or windows are closed. It may have a larger footprint that IE6 does, but I'll bet 6 has a larger fotprint than 5, too. Stability-wise, 7 never caused me any problems (that 6 didn't have at least as bad).
B) IE8, like Chrome (though the first beta of 8 actually predates the Chrome public beta) uses separate processes for tab management. This actually increases RAM usage per tab (in both browsers) but does mean that closing a tab releases lots of RAM. Also, it means that if a tab crashes, it doesn't bring the whole browser down (looking at YOU, Firefox...).
C) All modern browsers, including IE8 (and possibly IE7 - I forget - but most certainly NOT including IE6) will restore tabs after a crash, and have the ability to restore tabs that were open when the browser was closed normally.
Technically, no the files are not "DRM wrapped" as that would modify the files themselves. Instead, they go into a special folder on the Zune with associated metadata that limits the number of times you can play each song.
The Zune 30 (1st-gen) had a graphic EQ, but it was dropped from later players. This is disappointing (as a lacking feature) but I honestly don't care because the audio output quality, at least using the Premium earbuds, is quite good enough. It would probably bother some people, though.
Balance I don't think either Zune or iPod have, though I could be wrong about that.
Zune will automatically turn off if left in sleep long enough, but I'm not sure what the period is (doesn't appear to be settable). Don't know about iPod.
Mic and voice recording are present on the Zune. No iPod, not even the Touch, has this.
FM tuner is also present in all Zunes, and missing in all iPods. (On a side note, Sansa players can record radio, which Zunes can't - but Zunes can mark songs heard on the radio for later download.)
Overall, by the features you list, the Zune comes out at least as good as the iPod. I'm honestly not sure what "dumbing down" the Zune has, lack of an EQ (supposedly to extend battery life and reduce cost) aside.
In KDE, fish:// is a protocol for remote access to... well, anything (that takes a file path, at least). You can use it in Konqueror, of course, but you can also use it to open files in Kate, or archives using Ark, or rip and save an image to a remote server using K3b... you get the idea. It's cool.
Of course, it would help if all those apps worked correctly in KDE4, but 3.5 is still good.
There are actually downloadable alternatives to Explorer.exe, changeable via a registry setting. I'm not sure that I'd say any of them provide quite so many features, but they exist.
http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+alternate+desktop+-linux&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
The first few results of that search will point you to at least 3 different ones.
While being able to use all 4 arrow keys is nice, you can cycle both directions in Alt-Tab (or Flip3D) using either arrow keys or holding Shift while pressing Tab. Unless you have a truly outrageous number of windows open, this is usually still quite fast - especially since the most common use is just flipping between two separate programs, in which case you need only hit Alt-Tab once for each flip (the other program, being the most recently used, will be first in the list).
I'm fairly sure - especially given the fast-loading thumbnails in Alt-Tab (A.K.A. Windows Flip) - that nobody seriously uses Flip3D for switching applications. It's a cool way to show off a compositing window manager, but is at best trivially more useful than Alt-Tab, yet significantly slower.
Overall Apple has approved many thousands of apps and the percentage of apps that have been denied is small compared to that.
Citation needed. This kind of statement, without supporting evidence, sounds like either wishful thinking or fanboyism.
Well, it works fine (unless you're running a particularly performance-intensive applet) on the 400MHz Nokia n800 (same processor line that the iPhone uses, 2/3 the processor speed, Debian operating system). It certainly decreases battery life while, for example, watching a video online... but it's possible to do so. It's the real thing, too; Desktop-capability Flash 9 (at the time, the most recent version available for any platform - they may have upgraded to 10 with the most recent firmware).
Of course, it does make AdBlock Plus a necessity, but on a 800x480 screen I don't want ads filling up my browser window anyhow. Hell, I never do.
I realize that there probably are people buying those, but I've not once seen one "in the wild" (outside and Apple store). I've seen Zunes, I've seen Android-based phones, I've even seen a PS3 or two. Not a single AppleTV, though - and I actually know quite a few Mac fanboys.
In other words, Apple is allowing apps that are used for browsing, but has not gone back on their "no third-party software that can execute other software" i.e. a competing JavaScript engine (or Flash, or Java, or even Bash...)